How Many Miles?

I hurt myself. Specifically, my hip. All week, I could hardly run — yesterday I trudged along for 15 minutes before giving up and walking home.

This was after getting a killer massage/torture session from Jamey, a friend of Scotty and Coach Rod. Fifty minutes of elbow-digging into my hips left me feeling like I'd already finished the week's prescribed 20-mile run.

So you can imagine I was not looking forward to today's outing, the last loooong run of my marathon training plan. With some prodding from Mom and a whole lot of stalling, I headed out to Nisene Marks around 11 a.m. to run the fire road.

I had a plan, I swear. I routed a course on this very nice map, calculated the miles, even told Mom and Christy where I'd be in case something went awry and the sheriff's search and rescue team needed to be summoned.

It turned out to be the best run I've had in weeks.
• Sunny skies, but not too hot under the trees
• Few people out on the trails
• Fun music on my iPod
• And, best of all, no pain in my hip.

The only problem? At the advice of some very kind (but possibly alcoholic) weekend warrior mountain bikers, I veered from my carefully planned course and continued up the fire road past the Sand Point Overlook. The bikers were right: it was beautiful up there. But I think their ability to calculate distances might be inhibited by their love of vodka- and kahlua-laced milkshakes.

When I came across a small "11" sign on the side of the trail, I said a bad word and turned back. Best guess? I was 11 miles from somewhere. (The bottom of the park? Top of the park? Hell?) So it's pretty likely I ran 22 miles.

It took me about 3:45 running time ... but as you calculate that mile pace in your head (10ish), remember there is about 2,000 feet of elevation gain in that run and it all happens at once. Oh, and sometimes my girly pop country causes me to break out in dance while I'm running and I don't stop my watch for that part.

Point is, I'm back and can run the Eugene Marathon on May 1. Thanks to those who helped (or just smiled politely when I ran by singing today).

Here are some photos. No videos of the singing and dancing, though.

Muddy Day Run

So today we set out to run 12-ish miles in Nisene Marks. After the 35-mile bike ride I embarked on, basically alone, yesterday, the hill-intensive run seemed like a bad plan. However, with the opportunity to crank out the run with Rich, Scotty, Blair, Steve and the crew, the trails seemed less daunting.

Oh my gosh, it was fun! I love running in Nisene but rarely hit the trails. Typically I stick to the fireroad because I'm either running alone (safety) or want to do an exact distance. With a half-dozen "over 40" men to run with, no need to worry about off-the-grid pot growers, getting lost or how I would make it back should I break an ankle.

For anyone who knows the park, we ran West Ridge Trail from the fire road up and up and up to the turn to Hoffman's Home Site. Essentially, it's the half-marathon course backwards.

The trail was all kinds of muddy. Steep, too. We ran, they sang Beatles songs and it drizzled on us. All that uphill paid off with about a mile of extreme downhill. I'm not sure the guys enjoyed it, but I just rolled down making Indian whoops and stretching my arms out like a kid playing airplane. Soooo fun!

At the end of all this, we did have to grind out about three miles on the fire road, which was grueling and made me wish I had eaten breakfast.

We finished muddy and exhausted, but out-ran the downpour (it started just as we were loading up to head home or out to breakfast). And we got in a great 13-mile run, well on our way in our marathon training plan.

Tough run

So Felix was right. Don't tell him I said so, but he was right when he said the Jungle Run in Los Gatos would be hard.

This was the race the Tuesday morning crew had trained for. Intervals at 6:30 a.m. Tempo miles in the middle of our long runs. Tapering. We were going to run fast -- 8-minute mile pace was the goal, which would lead to a 1:45 finish and a huge personal best.

But I got food poisoning. I can't point fingers at where it came from, I just know that I woke up nauseous around 2 a.m., then spent the next hour trying to keep it together before giving in and giving it up to the toilet. This was really frustrating -- not just due to the 7 a.m. race -- but because I just don't get sick. I brushed my teeth with tap water for two weeks in Guatemala and was fine. I eat warm yogurt without so much as a burp. But something finally got me.

I considered skipping the race, but the Web site had promised cool finishers medals and I was too proud to admit defeat from the bathroom floor (and also too hard-headed to tell my running pals about my predicament). So I went.

The race went well for the first half-mile. I don't be Debbie Downer here, but the rest of it was fairly terrible. I think a bee stung my thigh before mile 1 (I still have a huge welt). Then we hit the main road, where the sun already beat down and temperatures felt like they were 100 degrees. Realistically, it was probably verging on 80, and not even 8 a.m. yet.

I lost the crew (all of whom ran amazing times!) between miles 4 and 5. From there, most of the run was spent convincing myself that dropping out now would be futile, embarrassing and, ultimately, more frustrating that plowing on ahead. With about four miles to go, race bandits Blair and Felix found me. They had sport beans and stories. Blair even carried my waterbottle, and having the distraction of company really carried me through those last few hot, mildly hilly miles.


My final time, though no where near the goal pace, wasn't anything to scoff at: 1:54:37 is still a personal best.

What was even better was Scotty and John both getting personal bests and Lynn taking second place in her age group. Good job!!

Speed training

For the first time since college, I'm doing a track workout in the morning. (And yes, that's me on the left being coached at one of those college workouts.)

To be honest, I'm a little nervous for the early-morning intervals. I keep times and monitor my pace during some runs: we run mile repeats every now and again, and two years ago Julie and I did some half-mile repeats on a loop course, but nothing at the level I'll be able to in the morning.

However, this is good. There is a goal here: Run fast! I want to run a fast half-marathon just to see how speedy I can be. It's kind of a silly plan, because really I'd rather do a four-hour run as training for an ultra-marathon, but this is good for me and it's good for the triathlon training. Also, it's just fun. I like that tinge of fatigue in my legs every morning and the accomplishment of running 10 miles at an 8:30 mile pace (that was Sunday morning) even though it hurt.

But there's one more reason. I think I'm faster than my times show. I run challenging, not fast, marathon courses and over-train (or at least don't taper) for shorter races, so I never gauge what my capabilities really are. I'd like to find out.

And here's the back story: It had been a long time since I had a bad race. College. Probably this really horrible 10K performance I had at Avenue of the Giants one year when I thought I was capable of running 6 miles even though all I'd done for the past four months was eat crap food and drink.

Anyway, point is I'd had a good streak of runs. Until a few weeks back.

Sarah (my sister's friend) and I met up to run the Nitro Trail half-marathon in Pinole, a suburb in the East Bay. The course was fairly flat and fast. Sarah and I ran together through the first half of the run, clocking sub-8 minute miles throughout. It was awesome, especially because it was Sarah's first half marathon and she hadn't done much training. Pretty much, she's just awesome.

So I started dropping back around mile 8 (I think, it's all a bit hazy) but still had a really amazing pace going at mile 10. Then there was a fork in the trail, no volunteer in sight and I was surrounded by a forest of pink ribbons. Right turn or left turn or straight? I went one way, questioned myself and turned back. I found a different trail and followed two women (who turned out to be the winners). I finished in the remarkable time of 1:36. I ran approximately 11 miles.

The race director had no compassion for the unfortunate turn of events in my race. Had I made the correct directional decision, I prolly would have scored a sub-1:50 time, which is a huge PR for me. Instead, I pouted and cussed and was generally disagreeable over it.

The following weekend, I ran a much more challenging half in Nisene Marks -- hilly single-track trail sometimes so steep that I walking was the only option -- for "fun" and finished in just over 2 hours (2:00:16). It was actually my fastest half-marathon race finish ever, but I ran 1:55 and some change at the mid-point of the Seattle Marathon last fall.

Sunday morning hangover cure

With the taste of Seabright Brewery ale still on my tongue, I reluctantly set off with my friend Scotty for a long, easy run in Big Basin State Park on Sunday morning. My goodness! It is the perfect time of year to enjoy this trail. Even with a hangover, I had a great time (well, once I worked all that beer out of my system and then until I ran out of water toward the end) and loved the views of Berry Creek Falls, our turnaround point on the out-and-back run.

You can pick up the trail at Waddell Beach, which is on Highway 1 near the county line, or up at park headquarters outside of Boulder Creek. We opted for the former, which means the run to the waterfall is about six miles if you stick to the bike- and horse-friendly dirt fire road. Pretty quickly, the trail finds the creek, then follows the water up. You cross several bridges -- one that's just two steel I-beams cabled to the rocks -- and climb a few steep hills along the way. The fire road gives way to single-track trail about a mile from the falls and those last few hundred meters just fly by.

It's hard to not linger at the falls, a 70-foot (ish) drop that is arguably one of the prettiest waterfalls on the California Coast. The viewing platform has a nice bench and some rails (perfect for stretching) and on Sunday there were a few hikers passing through to chat with. But staying too long under the dense redwood canopy chills you, as we found out Sunday.

Making our way back down, it seemed like we breezed down the dirt path -- probably thanks to the slight decline and caffeine fix (Espresso Love Gu). Things were fine until I decided to stop and pee in the bushes. I spotted a little lizard who seemed friendly (he was watching me squat!) so I picked him up to show Scotty. Halfway back to the trail, the little guy bit my thumb! I "accidentally" flung him into the bushes.



The lizard wasn't the only interesting wildlife we encountered. We saw monarchs flap past and watched little fish flick around in the crystal-clear stream. There are a couple of ag fields early in the run, which gave way to lush green forest and fields of tiny baby-blue wildflowers.

Near the beginning of the fire road, there is a trail that loops off of it for hikers, I suppose to give them a reprieve from the bikes and horses. We hadn't taken this on the way out, but decided to come back on it. I'd never been up that way before and didn't know that, with my waterbottle bone dry and the sun starting to blaze down a bit (sorry, 80 degrees is hot!) we were again climbing hills, these ones baked in golden sunshine.

More than once, I stopped to walk. I felt like a huge wimp, especially with Scotty jetting in front of me while playing tour guide (ex: "these are trees"). But he put up with my exhaustion -- this was my longest run since the marathon two weeks prior -- and even pushed me up a hill.

We descended right to Horse Camp, car-camping spot about a half-mile in from the beach, and filled our water bottles from the newly installed water pump before finishing out the run and jumping in the 55-degree ocean. It took us just a bit more than two hours, so I'm guessing it was about a 13-mile trek.


Our reward for running -- and the sole topic of conversation during the last few miles of our run -- were burgers and cold drinks (Coke and juice, not beers) at the Davenport Bakery, Bar and Grill. Yum! Food tastes so much better after a good workout!

And then I went home to nap.